Problems in the prisons? Monmouth lawmaker wants facts

Assemblyman David Rible, R-Monmouth, wants an investigation into problems in the state prisons.

The freshman legislator cites a damaging hearing where it was alleged that violent street gangs are running rampant inside the institutions.

“The purpose of our prison system is to reform and rehabilitate the inmates — not enroll them as future gang members,” said Rible.

That is what the State Committee of Investigation, or SCI, says is happening. The gangs, says SCI, operate as freely behind the walls and wire as they do out on the street.

SCI says the gangs — especially the Bloods — force otherwise non-willing inmates to serve in the gangs, either by threats of violence or by actual beatings.

Rible is writing a letter to the chairman of the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee, saying, “I am requesting that you call a special hearing … and that you ask Department of Corrections Commissioner George W. Hayman to come before the committee and answer questions about this growing problem.”

There is no word on whether the hearings will actually be scheduled.

Hayman has said he does not want to discuss prison security issues in public.